Wedding venue

I've been complaint about for not updating my blog!

So here's the latest update. My wedding venue on 12th April 2008, Saturday, will be held at the Singapore Art Museum. Here is a sample picture of what it may look like but I don't think I want to set my tables up like that. I shall make all my guests stand around hahahahaha.

It takes all sorts of people to make the world go round

The short term scholarship interviews are finally going to be over soon. It takes more than a month of hectic life, countless OT into the night, a lung infection and lots of boo-boos to finally make it through. 3 more interviews and it will be over soon. I'm starting to feel that I can finally breathe again.

It really takes all sorts of people to make the world go round. I see engineering professors who are so trapped in their own world that they became so self-centered vs the sociology professor that gave the interviews a humane touch. I really enjoyed the sociology professor's interview sessions. I see students from the different faculties, engineering students are no so eloquent and even dared to attend interview in slippers vs business students who are so well-dressed for the occasion and spoke so well, maybe having countless presentations really helps. There are many cases where students take on part time work as they are in need of money but there's only so many awards to give away, not enough for everyone vs students who only need the extra cash to invest in shares or piano lessons. End of the day, the question is: how will this $3,000 going to make a difference to the lives of those who receives it.

There are some very unique cases as well.

For example, the national fencing girl who is really really passionate about the sports, to the extent that she chose to pay the full tuition fee which costs $22,000++ a year just so that she can do PE in NIE without being bonded to MOE. Of course, she has the money and don't really need the $3,000 one-year scholarship but I think it's passion that cannot be bought. There's also a interesting guy who wanted the money so that he can start his own business and keep telling the interviewers not to reveal his business plans to others. There's another guy who has been going to Thailand for the past 7 years to teach Chinese to the hill tribe people for a few weeks every year and even picking up very fluent Thai over the years. There's also the guy whose parents didn't wish for him to attend University so that he can take over his father's job to be a mosiac layer but he went against his parents and had to fund his own studies from several jobs. I feel sorry for this last guy as the engineering professors felt that he's unpolished and can survive in all circumstances so thus they felt he didn't deserve the award. I feel that all the more people like him, the underdogs of the society, should be given the money, not only because he genuinely needs it but also as a form of encouragement that he has done the right thing. I am sure that in this case the money would have made more of a difference to him than any other people.

The common thing that binds these people is the passion they have for what they do and to go for it. They really leave me questioning myself.

It's a baby!

My girlfriend gave birth to a baby girl yesterday! So happy for her. I think hers is the first baby that I know of in my group of friends. The funny thing was the day before I was actually asking her over MSN when is she due and she was telling me next week but who knows the next day morning she gave birth to a healthy baby girl! I wish I could go visit her but I'm still coughing so badly today. :(

Anyway, congratulations dear Peipei!

Lung infection

I never expected something so serious when I went to see the doctor. I thought it was just coughing that refused to go away and phlegm only. Think it was aggravated by not enough rest and the dusty office that is under renovation now. Oh well, don't know if I should be happy with the 2 days MC or not. It gives me an opportunity to rest but on the other hand, there's still work undone and the interviews are running next week, makes me so gan cheong now.

........

I guess you'll really hate your job when you are sick and your boss still asks whether you can go back on half day.

Tired

I am here typing this at 1am in the morning and I have to wake up at 6.30am to work. I'm working 7 days this week. I don't know how much longer I can take it. The peak period never seems to be stopping. I use to think I like this kind of job but now I think I'm too old for it. I cannot forever be running orientation camps my whole life. Physically and mentally too tiring now at this age to do it. And especially when my boss don't buy the idea of letting the scholars form their own club so that they can run events themselves instead of us, the office people running events for the students. Back in my time, where got this kind of luxury? It's all student-initiated and run by students on their own. It's bad when your boss is an ex-teacher who is a control freak over the students and worry about too many things. Uni students are not secondary school kids anymore. Like my friend was saying, if the students don't have ownership of the things they do, there is no sense of responsibility and that is why we are having so much trouble now rallying the students when we needed help.
The situation is just bad.....

Burnt out

Mood: angry & tired....

That's how I felt 2 weeks ago. Too many things happening at the same time or should I say problems. I'm so looking forward to my leave tomorrow and the Shanghai trip in November.

Anyway work sucks when you have colleagues that are totally uncooperative. What's with just fishing a name out from your computer? How much time could that take? No wonder he's still single, probably he can continue to stay that way if he doesn't check himself and strive to be more gentlemanly. I really don't understand these people's mentality. Don't they understand that what goes round comes round?

A dress for my model

This is so fun!! No wonder the craze on crystal decorations is so in now. In my ring pillow craze, I got some crystals that I wanted to iron on but no chance to do it yet. So I decided to experiment it on a dress. Let me show you my handiwork:

I took my model's old dress and taa-daaa! It's a brand new look!

This picture here shows my satisfied model in the nice new dress I created! =)

Random thoughts

I have a gay friend who's always forwarding out interesting articles for me to read. Frankly, I don't read all of them but the recent ones on a local playwright who went to relief teach in a neighbourhood school but got terminated 2 weeks later because of his inclinations. Although as usual The Ministry will not reveal why they asked him to pack his bags. Then there's another one on how a guy was rejected from NIE, again due to his inclinations and he did not pass the 'medical checkup'.

Actually when I read the playwright's blog, I was really touched by how much difference he made to the kids' life in the short 2 weeks he was there. The little things we see when we were teaching overshadowed by the 'bigger' problems of trying to catch up on syllabus on time for exams etc. How in a teacher scarce school, he was made to mark 10 classes of social studies scripts sounds familiar too. Those were the days.

Wedding Photoshoot

Yay! Photoshoot on 30 June was a great experience! Plenty of things I didn't know. For example, tons of makeup can cover any flaw including persistent dark eye ring.
Anyway, we started late. Only manage to reach the place at 10+am when we were suppose to be there at 9.30am. :P Seated in front of the mirror that looks like an actor's dressing room, you know the kind where the mirror will light up, for a moment I felt like a model. Went for outdoor shoot first as the day was cloudy and the photographer is not confident that weather will hold up but in the end no rain came for the day though, was kind of sad that we missed sunset shots.
Posing was tiring. The photographer really demanded a lot of difficult poses. Maybe not used to deliberate posing in front of a camera. By the time the whole session wrapped up it's already 8+pm and after trying to tidy up for a while, we finally left the place at 9+.

While waiting at the dressing room, we had some spare time while no one was around and we took some photos =) Here's a sneak preview though it's blur but I like it a lot. Better than the other one which was clear.

OCC MJ Retreat 2007

Woohooo!!! I'm back from the annual retreat session! By popular request, I will blog about this immediately with pictures attached! Haha think it's been a long time since I have won this much in mj. $22.80!

Look at this set of winning tiles! It was the most exciting mj game in my personal history of mj playing!

Everyone is eagerly waiting for their own winning tiles but i was drawing the 2nd last tile and I got a 'bai ban' which added on to my 'pong' earlier on and I was drawing the last tile to make up for my 'gang'. Lo and behold! The winning tile of five circles!! The last and winning tile for me! I wasn't expecting that. I thought that having 3 animals and a 'bai ban' to make up to 4 'tai' is good enough for me but it ended up in a 'zi muo' 'man tai' wahahahahaha.

And by the way, we've OCC-ed for 4 years!! Long live MJ uni and all it's members! =)

Gown trying for Photoshoot

Available only for a limited time for those interested to see what I have tried, here's the link:
http://cocopop.multiply.com/photos/album/2

Not exactly the best experience but bottomline is I got all my gowns for the photoshoot. Hope it turns out well. Hmmm....not hope, it better be good.

Post-note: The link has been made private. Those still interested, please sign up with multiply and I shall add you. =)

Worst flu bug ever

It's not called the worst flu bug for nothing. I caught it, my mum caught the more serious version and spread it to me again then my brother caught it and my colleague in the opposite room is on mc because of it. Eeeeks!
Long ago I would have welcomed this kind of bug which could let me rest at home for a few days but not now when I have tons of meetings next week and I got to prepare for it. I don't like this flu bug.

Things do not change; we change.

Today the PRC students graduated from their prep course to the Uni. When I step in for work, this was one of those projects that was 'conveniently' handed to me. Luckily everyone that I worked with is doing this for the first time. As the overall in charge of the ceremony, I frankly did very little. In fact I was worrying the past few days is there something important I should be doing but not done?

The ceremony lack any guest of honour because they all backed out last minute. My dear boss didn't even inform me that she's not coming. But the show still went on. The highlight of the ceremony definitely is the skits put up by the students themselves to show off how much their English has improved! Very very very creative! To put up 8 skits in a row can be very draggy but this is definitely not. Skits include things like:
- Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai Brokeback Mountain edition
- The classic TV scene, remember a tv and people playing out inside the screen? I always love the 'advertisements'
- My personal favourite is the recital at the end. Recited and written by the students in an English standard far better than the above average Singapore student and accompanied by a video montage of the photos they took from the start when they signed the contract to come to Singapore to the various activities that took place during their course. My title came from one of the quotes they used. I'm really very much touched despite this is the third time I'm seeing it (I attended the previous two rehearsals). It is a really good ending to the ceremony.

It has been a very long time since I've seen such things put up by students. I remember when I was studying, there used to be things like English Drama Week and students will put up skits as competition during assembly. But somehow as the years went on, such things seemed to be lost. When I was teaching there was no such things at all. In fact, assemblys were rare and even if there were, it's because we use it to celebrate events or make annoucements. Today's graduation ceremony just showed that if given the right push, students can actually come up with very creative ideas, they can be imaginative if we allow them to. I'm sure that goes the same for our local students.

I would say that it went very well although it lacked the element of grandness and solemn feel that a graduation ceremony should have. To me, it is a success because these students owned the day and took pride in it. There are singing talents, dancing talents, musical instrument talents, video editing talents, photo taking talents etc just that we do not have time to showcase every single one.

Oh and I must mention this: during the ceremony there was a lapse in timing. During the empty space, the course coordinator made an appeal to the students for someone to come perform. It didn't take long and a boy stood up, came to the front, took the microphone and started singing American Pie. He may have forgotten some of the lyrics but the sporting spirit is definitely commendable. If this had been a local bunch of students, I'm sure all will just sit there waiting to see which idiot (if any at all) would volunteer himself. I see why these PRC students are the cream of the crop (albeit only the 2nd layer) and it is no wonder why. In a big country, if you don't stand out above the rest, you are nothing.

Today had been a good day.

That 80s phone

I've frankly forgotten when was the last time I've ever seen this type of phone. I only remember that we used to have it around the house but that was so long ago! Guess what? This is MY office phone when I stepped into my room on the first day of work. Luckily I got them to change it but they only got about to doing it recently.


Proof that the tele is from the 80s. It's imprinted on the back: May 1985. Property of Telecoms.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Tired out

Mood: tired....
Yesterday was really insane. I have not been so tired for a very long time! In fact I have not been running around, either walking or standing, for the whole morning and afternoon for a very very long time. Think the last time such things happened was during uni days running around for the orientation camp. I barely ate nor drank any water the whole day till the whole event was over and me and my colleague nearly died from heatstroke! The first thing we did was to go grab cold drinks and fries! But it's good experience and something I have not done for a long time.

Wedding planning 6

Mood: vex....

What utter rubbish! We are place in the number 908 position out of 1065 applicants for 65 units of flats. Great. There goes any hope of balloting for the flat. Restart all over again.

Anyway there's meet-the-parents session this weekend. My dad is more nervous than I am. Asking me all sorts of questions about my FPIL. He keep saying why need to meet so early, no need to meet lah... haha.

It may seem like a lot of stuff has been done but in actual fact, there's still so many things pending confirmation. So many things yet nothing done kind of feeling. And now with the bad news about the house, all the more work to do. Getting married is sure no fairytale. Too bad, can't just jump to the end of the story and happy ever after.

New update on job

Job has been really 'exciting' with hundreds of emails to reply to. I've never needed to answer so many emails in any job. Now my desk is not just covered by think ring files but all sorts of coloured files!

The latest happening in the job is to bring a bunch of PRC (I always thought it's not politically correct to address them in this way but hey that's how my organisation calls them) delegates to tour the campus. I never knew there is so much to planning a simple trip. First time doing it and my predecessor only did it twice before last year but not the whole day kind of program. Well I always get those first-time thingy on my job.

Today just went for a walk in the hot sun to recce the campus. Did I ever blog before about me getting lost in the campus? Anyway to prevent such things from happening again I went with my other colleague to familiarize the grounds. I really hate the campus, it's not only far but it's too huge! I still like where I came from. I'm glad most of my friends came from the same institution I graduated from :P Nice small and cosy.

Anyway I read on my friend's blog about the girl who passed away due to stress and overwork. I shall never work on a laptop for 8 hours straight. Hmmm come to think of it, I don't have a laptop! Haha anyways I shall not overwork.

My birthday is just another day

My birthday is just another day. None of my new colleagues knew it was my birthday and I had a long meeting in the morning and I was 'arrowed' by my boss to write minutes. Bleahs. Just another day.

Thanks to everyone who still remembers and messaged me in one way or another, there's a reason why you people are called friends! =)

Change in date again

Thanks to a 'friendly' reminder from a friend, my wedding date is subjected to change again. Sianz... I hate all these date changing. Can't we just stick to one date?!?!

Wedding date - New update!

Mood: lala....

Oops.... I forgot to update my loyal fans of the blog that my wedding date has been brought forward to 12 April 2008.

Hope that's a good day for everyone to attend. :P

Working trip to KL

Mood: thoughtful....
Although not to a very far place but my very first working trip lasted 5 days in KL. Technically 3 days of work only because the first and the last day was just walking around the shopping district. The irony of the whole 5 days was that I didn't buy anything much at all but I spent a lot of money!! Guess it's the entertainment fee that went to dining with the professors.

It's a very interesting work trip. Got me thinking quite a bit. Basically the gist of it is to go nab the top brains over to sunny island here. All students with straight As with outstanding extra-curriculum activities. Some are chatty and friendly, very down-to-earth. A few are proud and haughty with lofty ideas. Some are passionate in the things they do. Some overcome physical disability to achieve the stars with their never give up attitude. A few with sad family background where one of their parents passed away. Some come from very poor family, looking to this as a way out for them because they know that having education is their ticket to a better life. Some come from rich family waiting to ride on the chance which they don't really need in the first place.

Eventually when it comes to choosing someone for scholarship, usually it's the ones that make an impression, stand out. I guess that's pretty much the same as job interviews. Then there's the question of why some of them are given the scholarship when their parents can clearly afford to send them over with or without the money but depriving of those who are really poor and waiting for this to bring them out of poverty. There's also the question of are they awarding those with physical disability so that eventually they can be good publicity when they do well? But undeniably, these foreign talents are fighters in their own right, I'm really impressed by them and at the same time I feel sad when I look back at the students I used to teach. I wonder where will our local people stand when there's no competition at all and foreigners just walk all over you. Maybe it's time to export ourselves as foreign talent as well.

Overall, it's a really good experience.

Ring pillow 2

This weekend I started on trying to make a ring pillow all by myself. Here's the end result without my Master's guidance by my side.

Time taken to complete: 2 days. Well, not the 2 whole days but maybe if you add up the time it probably took 1 whole day's effort.

Of course as usual, I had some help. Thanks to my FMIL for lending me her sewing machine (which may become mine one day! yikes!) and for her help in sewing it together although there are parts that can be improved on because I forgot the steps my Master shown me. :(
Oh and to my HTB who helped with the stuffing! Actually he's the one who did the stuffing. I didn't have a chance to play with it. (*ahem* so if the pillow feels weird, you know who to blame :P)

Overall not a very good ring pillow. My very first attempt on my own. Many parts I'm not really happy with but I shall keep my reservations to myself, in case some fortunate soul out there who reads my blog happen to receive it, I wouldn't want to expose all my flaws here. :P

Now it's a headache who to give it to. Not very nice to give my close friends something which I'm not very pleased with. Oh no, what to do with it?? Anyone wants to buy it as a gift????

New job day 3

Mood: tired....
New job day 3 and I'm feeling so dead tired. In fact, yesterday I came back so tired that I went to sleep at 11+pm. I think I have not slept so early for a very long time. Ok, fine, I'll admit it: Traveling a long distance to work kills. I've not gotten up so early to go to work for at least a year. My old body can't take this kind of early hours again. I NEED to get hold of that stupid bus uncle and force a seat on the bus out of him.
As with all jobs, first day and I get thrown into the deep end of the pool. I see my name on almost anything and everything that has a date and I don't even know what's going on. First day of work and I get information overload. A stack of SOP to read. Huge ring files start to appear on my table. Attachments of sorts appear in my Inbox. Plus my responsibility is to handle a group of undesirable so-called scholars from certain countries, 2 countries to be exact, and I'm sure everyone has heard about how undesirable these peeps are. Totally overwhelmed. And I'm traveling to KL next week. Much of the work reminds me of the old days in school, maybe that's why they claim public sector is a dead alley. Maybe my brains have really rested for too long. Time to get adjusted again. Challenge awaits.

Wedding planning 5

Mood: happy....
Oh gown trying was fun! Or quoting the words of the girls in the forum: playing barbie! I finally had a taste of what is it like to be a barbie doll with lots of beautiful dresses to change! Every wedding gown looks so lovely to me, I wish I could wear every one of them. But down to The Day, I can only choose one. Which to choose? Which to chose? Or maybe everyday should be my wedding so I can wear a different gown everyday! hehehe ;P

Anyway all ye faithful readers, first hand news! There may be a change of my wedding date! We figured that we've planned so well-ahead of time that there's room to bring it forward. Tentatively we'll be looking into April........ 2008 not 2007! Stay tuned for further updates!

Moving on to new chapter!

Cool, I received a phone call from my soon-to-be colleague saying that I'm required to fly to KL for work. And I'm flying off in barely less than 2 weeks from the start of my new job! Maybe the only down side is that it's over the weekends but I'm really excited! Finally a job that's not purely deskbound! Ohhh so much to look forward to! =)

Job change again

Mood: thoughtful....
Realised that past few entries were about wedding, this is not a wedding blog, so I better talk about something else, in case my readers get bored.

Looking back, it's been one year since I had a job change. Despite the ridiculous things I'm required to do sometimes, it really wasn't all that bad. I had my share of slacking at work. Well, when you are paid peanuts, the work commensurates with it. Hopefully the new place holds more challenges for me (read: useful work).

My fellow team mates are fantastic people (oh I think I've mentioned that before). Anyway in the job, I don't get to meet many other people but still, there's the occasional interaction with people outside the team. It just reinforces what I learnt in my previous job, that it takes all sorts of people to make the world goes round. Although sometimes dealing with stupid people really spoils my day but they exist everywhere. It's part and parcel of life. Anything else that I take away from this job? A good employee is one who pre-empts for his/her boss and clears shit for the boss. haha. There's no perfect boss out there, so thank god when you find one and be thankful for your lot.

Now I'm moving on to my next new job. I'm glad HTB is starting his new job on the same day as me too. =)

Last and worst wedding show

Mood: sighs....
Today we attended the worst wedding show ever. It starts with us arriving just in time to catch the presentation given by the travel agent the hotel tied up with. The ballroom is big but they have no proper screen and they put up the screen on the left side of the room so people seated on the left side had to turn their heads over just to see what was on the screen.

Then came the worst part of all, the modeling of the wedding gowns. The catwalk was placed in the middle and they had a manual spotlight placed on the left side of the room. When the show start, spotlight on, spotlight follow the models and guess what? Guests like me seated on the right were blinded by the spotlight! Total turn off by then.

When it was time for food, it was set up at a miserable corner of the ballroom with a snaking queue of hungry people. Non of the other wedding shows I went to were this bad. Guess they just couldn't give up the lucrative business of their cafe for a few hours. Oh well, we didn't queue for the food in the end and left. Anyway it will be our last wedding show since we've more or less settled most of the things. =)

Wedding Planning 4

Mood: happy....
Anyway the wedding plans are making even more headway now with the booking of the bridal studio!

Today (oops looking at the timestamp I realised I'm into Sunday now, so I meant Saturday as today) we made a trip to JB to take a look at the Malaysia bridal fair. The great thing about such things held in a shopping centre is that we get to shop first hehe. So shop, lunch then bridal fair.

At the fair, we just so happened to walk past the booth that my mahjong kaki signed up with last year and based on her raved reviews, we gave the salesgirl a chance and sat down with her. I think we are totally unprepared for what we are getting into despite me reading tons and tons of forums and our bargaining skills are really limited so we are not that able to bargain for as many perks as those I read in the forums. We spent a good two and a half hours with the girl who showed us lots of pictures and talked a lot about the package. In the end, without visiting any of the other booths, we signed with them. Although I think we probably signed on the high side but converting back to Singapore dollars, it's still well within our budget (which is very low, by the way, due to lack of funds).

Despite the seemingly rash decision to sign up on the spot, both HTB and me loved the way they presented their photos in the album. Quoting a long unheard of term, it's absolutely STYLO! HTB is not the kind of guy who would just go into the first shop and make it his last, so I think he really liked the style of the photos a lot. Anyway I think he's very happy with it but he worries that I don't get to have nice gowns to wear as we haven't really seen any of it yet. I just want to say that if he's happy with the photos I guess clothes don't matter that much. I don't have any dream gown in mind so not having anything to be made-to-measure doesn't bother me so much. One wedding gown looked just like the next, who remembers what you wore even one year from now? I don't. So as long as the pictures show up great, that's all the memories I need for my wedding photo shoot.

Anyway all these preparations eventually will be just gone in the flash of a day but spending my life with another person is a lifetime thing. I rather have a perfect lifetime than a perfect gown, anytime.

Wedding Planning 3

Mood: happy....
The whole wedding thingy looks like it's making more headway now.

Last week we paid a visit to the restaurants that we would like to hold our wedding dinner for our family. HTB likes the one with a big reception area and it's in a hotel somemore. I prefer the one with a Shanghai theme but I do agree it has a very strange layout. But then again it's darn cool coz if we manage to make it up to 25 tables, we get the restaurant to ourselves with a 3 piece band and 2 live singers thrown in! If it's gonna be a family dinner only then it's really hard to squeeze out so many tables. Until now, we only manage to chalk up 15 tables for family.

One of the most ridiculous thing I heard from a restaurant I called up was that, for the time being, they are unable to take any reservations for less than 18 confirmed tables because they need to meet their 2008 revenue first, so only dinners with 18 tables and above can book first. Duh. Aren't we customers too??? Anyway from the restaurant visits, we conclude that we are still way too early for restaurants bookings. Most of them have no bookings for the month we are looking at and I think even the 2-3 months before too. So in the meantime we'll keep looking for a friends' venue before deciding on the restaurant. Who knows, maybe I get to go for the live band restaurant afterall if we can't find a separate venue for our friends. =D

Changing look

Tried to figure out the HTML thingy so that I can get my counter to appear at the bottom of the blog. It sure took a very very long time! Very time-consuming and I still can't figure out how to remove the blue thingy on top of the footer. But at least I get the background to work so the counter can show up correctly. That's enough programming for the night.

Wedding bears!

My wedding bears!!! I love bears!!! My dear colleague gave it to me as part of my farewell gift. Thank you so much dearie! I'm so excited. The only question I have is: Why is it Groom & Bride not Bride and Groom??

Anyway I'm so sad I'm leaving them. I really had a very wonderful time at work with these wonderful ladies and the one and only gentleman in the team. Really can't bear to leave them. I am really blessed with all the fantastic colleagues I meet wherever I go. Cross my fingers that my future colleagues are just as wonderful.

Series of Random Thoughts 3

Silly me went down all the way to my freaking far new workplace with the intention to checkout my potential colleagues but I actually left without saying hi to my big boss!! Big Mistake!! Argh...

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This supposedly new ubber cool place that I emailed to for a quotation said the following:

I can only say it’s a $100+++ - $190+++ per pax it really depends on what you need, thus, it’ll be good that we meet up when you’re free. Just for your info, the price includes free flow of wine, beer & soft drink, food, décor, valet, etc.

OMG!!! What kind of price is that?!?!?! Ok. Next.

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I'm dropping A LOT of hair!!! Help..... I don't want to turn bald!

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Despite attempts to sleep early, I was not able to do that in the end. Any suggestion on how to tame the night owl in me?

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Wedding Planning 2

Mood: chirpy....
And finally we have a date! Hear hear all ye faithful blog readers. It's more or less gonna be in July. Hehe I've finally convinced him to have it in July so no excuses for all of you to not save up for that fat ang pao. (NOTE: The July here denotes July 2008. Just realised that it's not July yet so whenever I tell people I have to explain that it's NEXT YEAR :P) And yup we did it all without consulting anyone on a so-called "good" date. Bah.... too troublesome. I believe the day we get married is a good day for sure! Anyway whether a marriage lasts doesn't depend on what a silly book says but on how you manage to live with each other.

Anyway in my previous post I did mention I want to take a calendar out and just point, although I didn't do it in the end but we did something close to it. Actually this is more for the house than for the actual wedding since we sent our application in for the balloting and by the rule of our great government we die die need to show the marriage certificate in order to get the keys. So we resorted to working forward the dates as to when we roughly need to show our cert. There's a whole range of dates that we couldn't decide on so in the end we wrote numbers beside each date and wrote the numbers on blank papers, rolled them up and made my brother pick a number. Hahaha like the old days when our parents would make us pick 4D numbers for them during occasions like our birthdays.

Then came the planning of our budget. If neither of us print currencies than it's wiser to plan out our budget. With just a rough gauge only, we realise that we have a rather tight budget to work with. I'm glad we have so much more time on hand to save up for THE day. Sure hope my prudent money sense will come in handy this time.

Wedding Planning 1

Mood: worry....
Realised that I haven't been blogging for a long time. Too many things to start worrying about. Planning for a wedding and getting a house at the same time is taxing. There's so many things to take into consideration. Basically the past week was about trying to find a date next year and I called this "fortune teller" woman up to try to get a date but was told the chinese almanac for 2008 is not out yet. One of the fortune teller lady is very rude somemore! So we are left stranded with no dates. Think I'm gonna get a big calendar with all the days and close my eyes and just point. There, that shall be the date.
We had to ask our parents how many relatives are they inviting so we can do a rough planning and we did a quick calculation of friends to invite. He has double the number of friends that I have!! It's times like these that I'm glad I'm not the really sociable kind of person so I can cut out a lot of Tom, Dick or Hairy.......hahaha
Then 3 days ago we finally sent in our application for the balloting of the new HDB flats. It's not cheap and it's definitely small. Today I checked the number of applications submitted and until now there's already 500 applications for only 65 units!! This is really insane.

Happy CNY!

Mood: chirpy....

Happy CNY!

This is a quiet CNY. Me and my bro finally get to shake off visiting my dad's brothers and sisters. Phew. And HTB came early in the morning to announce to my parents and grandparents that we are going to get married. Haha my dad has this total disbelief on his face when he heard the news, otherwise I think my folks seemed to have taken it very well with no further questions on what's our next move after the announcement. My grandma is the only one who told me that she is very happy for me and even asked for great grandchildren already!!!! Tsk tsk....the cycle of life....
So with that one thing off our minds, it's time to start looking for a flat and preparing other stuff. Since the initial excitement I think the both of us have basically slacked off from making preparations hehe.

Double Happiness

Mood: chirpy....
I received an unexpected call today at 5+ in the evening. Who would have thought that the HR of that organisation works so late! It leaves me feeling very shocked and a bit apprehensive of the working hours but nonetheless it was a pleasant surprise. I got a regular appointment with the organisation! At long last, I can stop my job hunt for the time being. =)

Who would have thought that good things trail one another. I've never felt as great as now. I'm raring to go!

I wanna be a bear!

What it should have been

Mood: amused....
Ok, so light sticks wasn't suppose to be the original plan. So, by repeated request to blog it, here's the original plan, copyrighted by The HTB (Note: Not known as The Boyfriend anymore. There, are you happy? :P)

I'm suppose to be walking along the Fullerton underpass with some friends. In the underpass, I'll come across a photographer taking photographs of a supposed bear mascot. I'm suppose to be very excited about it and telling my friends how cute it is. As we walk nearer, the photographer will ask me whether would I like to take a photo with the bear. I am suppose to say yes because I'm such a bear freak and it's a rare opportunity for me to take a photograph with a bear. Then as we are posing the bear is suppose to mumble something. Then I would go: "Har?". Then low and behold, the guy in the bear suit took off the costume head and ta-da!, I would see him there, asking if I would marry him and he will present me with the ring.

I'm glad this remained as a figment of his imagination, thanks to there's no decent bear suit in all available costume shops in Singapore. But when I heard it I was laughing so hard, I'm nearly falling off my chair. Haha, silly man.

Yes, I do.

Mood: bashful....
Sometimes, you think you know the right things to say when the time comes but when it hits you, it's just not the same.
Months back, when he said he's preparing for it, I thought he was kidding, as we were waiting for some other changes to take place first before I think it may be possible. And when he asked me to close my eyes and arranged the glowing light sticks, I wasn't expecting it. And when I saw the words, I still think he's joking. Until he whipped out a ring, then it hit me that it is real. First it was tears, then followed by nonsensical things like me telling him I'm glad someone is finally marrying me, haha, pretty dumb of me. But I was still in a shock, the whole night, not believing that it is real. And he told me the story of how the ring came about. I'm impressed with the whole effort of him going about doing it. But saying yes, is not because of the diamond but the person. Just like how it was done was not important but who it is.

Old memories

Mood: sentimental....
So desperately wanting to catch Deathnote 2 and given the limited cinemas still showing it, we ended up watching it at the old cinema called Princess (or rather Overseas Princess as it is now known) at Bedok. Well this is not a recap of the movie but it sure is a good one, despite The Boyfriend claiming how different it is from the comic.
For as long as I have been staying in Bedok, the cinema has been around. I think all these years it has been renovated once. Today sitting in it again, I don't remember it being so clean but the seats are definitely not as comfortable as those in big cineplexes, in fact, quite uncomfortable. Maybe next time should bring a cushion along :P
The tickets are still cheap. On a Thursday night, while the rest of Singapore charges about $8+ or even $9+, here it still charges $6. Don't quite remember what movies I have caught there but a few of those which left a deep impression on me was I caught Totoro and Jurassic Park 2 with my brother at the cinema when we were younger. The cinema is one of the Bedok icons that's still around despite all the changes in this old neighborhood these years. The only sad thing is that the patrons are dwindling in face of all the competition from those bigger and better cineplexes. Like today, there's only 5 people in the whole cinema. How often do you get to count the number of people in a cinema these days? Despite the short-comings of the cinema, I still wish it will be around for a long time, if not the old Bedok that I remember will fade to just a memory, all the old icons disappearing.

Yet another wedding show

Mood: scandalous....
Yes, another Sunday burnt on a wedding show but this time my friend did sign up eventually. Phew. Anyway this hotel really went all out. Very very impressed with the whole event, because not only did we get to eat a really good buffet but the service provided by the hotel staff was really impeccable. They probably recalled all their staff for this event and did not stinge at all, providing free flow of red and white wine and even champagne! Now that's what I called service.
On a side track, we meet our Sec 1 classmate there as well. Not that I remember her but very coincidentally she's marrying one of her Sec 4 classmate. Well I was very surprised coz if I didn't recall wrongly this guy used to date another girl from my class. What happened between them was very scandalous and the guy sure did not leave a very good impression on me. Well, Boyfriend insists that people do change but I'm very skeptical about it. Well, luckily the parties mentioned in the scandal here definitely do not read my blog.

A hoarder

Guess what? While tidying up today, I found the copies of the bond I signed my 3 years away! Yes, I'm a hoarder, I keep every possible kind of rubbish. I found my old report books, letters from old penpals etc. But the bond was still the most surprised find of all! I shall keep it to remind myself not to sign my life away the next time. There were 3 copies of it, I think I was suppose to give the other 2 to my 2 guarantors but I didn't. Well, now they have no need for them anyway. Hehe.

Brainless teenagers

Mood: gross out....

Gross, I just caught a couple making out at the stairs beside my flat! It just goes to prove my belief that teenagers nowadays are totally brainless. In the first place, you would NOT stop on the 14th floor to make out! And the moment me and my grandma started coming up the stairs, the Malay boy ran upstairs, leaving the Chinese girl trying to button her pants and trying to cover herself. I hope the girl realised what a jerk that asshole is. If they were in school uniform, I would have immediately whipped out my phone to take a picture and send it to their schools. Actually I did contemplate doing that but then again who am I going to send the photos to? Anyone has any good ideas what to do in a situation like that? Can I call the police?? I would have loved to do that.What can I do to engage in my role as a civic conscious citizen? I'm sure we would not want such situations to end up in unwanted teenage pregnancies.

A tribute to the Dean's quotes

Mood: amused....

My dearest Dean of MJU never fails to amaze me with her power of analogy. Today over MSN she totally wow-ed me again. Here's an extract of her exact words:

(earlier we were talking about she going to psycho her friend to join teaching)
dean says:like haunted apartments like that

dean says: ahaahahaa....one family move in then the other family can move out...we need renewal

wahahaha....really tickled me. But the one I loved best is still the junk food analogy. :D
Hey dean, if you are reading this, do you mind leaving down your junk food analogy again in my comments?? Hehehe.

Wedding shows

Mood: tired....

No no, please do not be mistaken. I'm not getting married anytime soon yet. But just riding on others' invitation to go and attend with them. Actually today's is the second one I've been to. The first one was good experience because we had a cheap buffet for 2 and it's not bad! Well this second one is not so good for buffet as there's too many people! We never expect so many people! There's at least 1000+ people attending !(@_@)! The queue for the buffet was totally impossible, to the extent that after the whole thing ended we had to go for Macs, so not worth it! And we were totally tired out by all the standing around because there just weren't any chairs in sight.

Sick....

OK, so the last time I updated my blog I did not mention that I was feeling unwell. At first I thought it's nothing major, anyway I cured the flu but then it turned out to be more major than a flu, it became stomach flu! I spent the 2nd day of the new year sitting on a toilet bowl. (@_@) Then the 3rd day of new year bent like an old woman, holding on to my stomach due to gastritis. So I managed to wriggle 2 days' worth of MC to stay at home. It feels really awful to be really sick. But looking on the bright side, I started the year with only needing to work for one day and it's a Friday! Hehehe....being optimistic is good afterall!

Happy New Year 2007!

Awww.....shucks, didn't managed to leave a post on New Year's Day itself.

Anyway the year started with spending a night counting down with my best friend & her husband-to-be at their place. Her husband-to-be made Beggar's chicken & my friend made bak kut teh, good to end the year with good home cooked meal. The Boyfriend brought his creation - orange jelly & wow-ed the crowd...Show-off as usual :P

Then we spent the night playing PS2, Blokus & watching tv and this continued all the way when we wake up the next morning. So I basically started my year being a couch potato! Totally decadent.

OK this year shall be a healthy year! I must workout and not overeat! Haha....so much for making new year resolutions, they will not be kept to anyway. Or rather I shall TRY to be healthy. There, that sounds better.

A warm gathering

Haha today I get to skive off work at 4.30pm! Walking out of the office with a bunch of colleagues, the feeling is just like one of those rare occasion when I ponteng school (as a student) during sec school, never thought I would get to feel that way again. :D

Anyway today is a good gathering for the MJ Uni, one of those rare occasions where we get full attendance! Good work, people! And I realise that I have avid readers of this blog! Hahaha then I shall make sure I update more often. The food wasn't too bad especially the 'truffled hand-mashed potatoes' and get this, you can't order this off the menu coz it's so precious that it can only come with the main course. But the corner where we sat is too cold for us to stay around for dessert, well it's the restaurant's loss that they can't milk more money out of us.

Well, it's not the food that matters, it's the company that's great! Actually recently I've been thinking - what great friends I have. Think it's the age thing getting to me, to be thinking about such things now. But I'm really grateful for the friends I made in my life. I may not have a very big social circle but whoever that's in are truly my true friends, all goes beyond hi & bye. I feel blessed. :)

Happy New Year 2007, in advance to all! May there be many more brilliant years to come!

The Rainbow Connection

Remember singing this when I was in choir a long long time ago. Nice songs & lyrics & it was sang by Kermit the Frog! I grew up watching good wholesome children tv such as Sesame Street, The Muppets, The Electric Company etc. I wonder what do kids nowadays watch?

Anyway here's the lyrics for The Rainbow Connection:

Why are there so many songs about rainbows
And what's on the other side?
Rainbows are visions, but only illusions,
And rainbows have nothing to hide.
So we've been told and some choose to believe it
I know they're wrong, wait and see.
Someday we'll find it, the rainbow connection,
The lovers, the dreamers and me.

Who said that every wish would be heard and answered
When wished on the morning star?
Somebody thought of that, and someone believed it,
And look what it's done so far.
What's so amazing that keeps us stargazing
And what do we think we might see?
Someday we'll find it, the rainbow connection,
The lovers, the dreamers, and me.

All of us under its spell,
We know that it's probably magic...

... Have you been half asleep?
And have you heard voices?
I've heard them calling my name....
Is this the sweet sound that calls the young sailors?
The voice might be one and the same
I've heard it too many times to ignore it
It's something that I'm s'posed to be...
Someday we'll find it, the rainbow connection,
The lovers, the dreamers, and me.

Laa, da daa dee da daa daa,La laa la la laa dee daa doo...

My first snowflake!

Goodness, I guess when you are totally engrossed it's hard to stop once you start. I started at 1am and I just can't stop till I'm done with it at 4am! But what a sense of satisfaction! :) Here's my work to show, my very own snowflake with a design by moi (but of course with lots of reference from other pictures :P)

My first quilled snowflake!

The side view: as you can see it's not made of plain white paper, it's checkered by the side! hehe

Taaa-daaaaa!!!
And this is what the final product looked like! Thanks to my brilliant idea coz I was looking for a box but couldn't find one but a plastic heart works just fine! :P

My bro had a new haircut!

My bro had not just a new haircut but coloured his hair too! Amaziing.....I think this is the first time he dyed his hair. Well, not bad looking. One of his best hair yet, I must say.

My First Ring Pillow

Today my off day, I went to learn the making of a ring pillow from the Master. Take a look at the end product:
Well not entirely my work, let's see, I did the sewing on the machine, provided the centrepiece, errrr.....I think that's it. I think the Master did most of the work haha, she end up stuffing the pillow, tying the ribbons etc. Pretty exciting but I'm so tired now. Thinks it doesn't look too bad. Now the problem is who to give this to?? Hmmm....too many candidates. I shall need to think about it.

Classic example of bad translation

Recently saw an example of really bad translation and it's for a movie showing on big screen by a local production company. 你不要耍我 was translated into: You don't play me.
Phulezeee.... spending so much money to make a movie, the least you can do is provide decent translation.

This reminds me of another classic bad example I saw on a local tv serial and I'll never forget. 你不要陷害我 was translated into: You don't sabo me.

*rolls eyes*

Congratulations my MJ partner

Last night I attended my MJ partner's wedding. Yup, my MJ partner, not kaki, coz we are the invincible duo fighting the MJ table with our potato chips! =) And that was 2 years ago when we started our MJ Uni. How time flies....And the MJ gang is all over the place and not in the same school anymore.

It was a lovely wedding, good photos (neighboring country standards are not bad) and wonderful desserts!! (Haagen Dazs ice-cream wrapped in a coat of chocolate!! *yums*) Sometimes I wonder, preparing for the whole year just for one day and in the blink of the eye it's over. Doesn't it leave a sense of emptiness after that? But it also marks the start of a lifelong commitment. Anyway I wish my MJ partner, happy ever after! (^^)

The Queen

You are The Empress

Beauty, happiness, pleasure, success, luxury, dissipation.

The Empress is associated with Venus, the feminine planet, so it represents,
beauty, charm, pleasure, luxury, and delight. You may be good at home
decorating, art or anything to do with making things beautiful.

The Empress is a creator, be it creation of life, of romance, of art or business. While the Magician is the primal spark, the idea made real, and the High Priestess is the one who gives the idea a form, the Empress is the womb where it gestates and grows till it is ready to be born. This is why her symbol is Venus, goddess of beautiful things as well as love. Even so, the Empress is more Demeter, goddess of abundance, then sensual Venus. She is the giver of Earthly gifts, yet at the same time, she can, in anger withhold, as Demeter did when her daughter, Persephone, was kidnapped. In fury and grief, she kept the Earth barren till her child was returned to her.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

Interview

Went for an interview at a certain tertiary institution near to the borders of Singapore in the West today. Some of the strange things the person asked:
1. Why did I take such a huge pay cut when I switched from the previous job?
2. Why do I still want to go back to an educational institution after going to corporate?
3. Why didn't I do counselling since I did Psychology? (FYI this is a REALLY DUMB question to be asking me, just shows you didn't know a single thing about the subject at all. Stop being so shallow, people)
4. And just because I did maths in uni, he asked some strange Mathematics question about the number of windows falling per year so what is the probability of the windows falling per day? (..DUH!)

No wonder a friend was complaining that tertiary education institution workers are really dumb. I don't think I want to go back for the 2nd round of interview....

My Little Hobby

Picture from the book

VS

My Work

Hmm...any comments? haha frankly I'm quite pleased with myself. This is so far my biggest project =D

P.S.:You are the reason I picked up the hobby again. I'm glad I found someone to appreciate it. =)
Happy Birthday!

Darn cuteeeee

This is Muffin the Westie!
Awww.....isn't it a darling??? It's just soooo cute...
It looked just like one of my stuffed toy. I absolutely love this dog although I have not seen it before. The picture was sent to me by a friend through MMS. It's her cousin's dog by the way. I just wanna tell her cousin that she has one darn cute dog there! =P

Movie: Deathnote

Forgot to post about this movie that we watched yesterday.

A unique show, as it is with Japanese movies which always have quite interesting themes.

A quick synopsis. Death God drops a notebook on Earth. Boy picks it up. Whoever's name is written in the notebook dies eventually. Boy used it to do justice by killing off the bad guys. Police looking for person who's killing without being seen. Another young boy joins the hunt for the killer.

Well, at first he does use it to kill off the bad guys but in the end, he used it to kill the good guys as well. It's just like the question of playing God: Who gets to decide who should live or die? What's evil or good? In the end he turned out to be the ultimate evil because to shake off the police's trail he ended up killing the girl who loves him. What kind of perfect world is being created? By who's standards?

There's no such thing as a perfect world. Accept it. The bad will always exist among the good. I guess it's just the balance of nature afterall.

New look

Hmm...not very new especially to people who came before. All I did was to shift this to the beta version and then did a bit of changes to the look so it's easier for me to use. HTML is just a bit too complicated to handle. Hope that this is easier to use now! =P

Bond-free

Maybe not so applicable now as it is last year but yes, last year, this time I was sitting at my desk throwing tons of stuff out. Last year was the year I was declared bond-free.

I was bored at work and was reading someone's blog and she was blogging the same exact sentiments I had when I finished my bond coz she's finished her bond too and moved on. (Sorry not very good at linking websites and besides, I don't know if it's ok to link afterall I don't want get into trouble)

Some quotes from the comments on her blog:

"We set out to change the world... ended up just changing ourselves"
"What's wrong with that?"
"Nothing, if you don't look at the world"

Liberation may be great, but the price has been paid with the time loss. Opportunities missed. The bond is never just about the duration itself. Nevertheless, if one desires a change, it's never too late to live the rest of one's life.

I'm glad I made my change =) I'm finally living my life now.

Random thoughts 2

Wanted to keep blogging regularly about the things I see and so on but sometimes just too tired to do it (and anyway I'm just another lazy pack of bones :D) Blogging at such a time is certainly not conducive, basically half my brains are gone, I have a good mind to just go to bed without brushing my teeth or slathering on my moisturiser.....I better try to update more the next time...... Good night blog and whoever that is reading it.

TGINTA

In case you are wondering what the title stands for it means: "Thank God I'm Not a Teacher Anymore"

Although I'm not a God believer but thinking about it makes me want to shout "Hallelujah" and give thanks to whoever is out there. After more than half a year away from the job, I'm still glad I chose to leave. Life away from being a teacher couldn't get any better. So what makes me say this? Recently I received an email from an ex-colleague (or rather my ex-boss) saying how terrible the Sec 3 classes were and how they bullied the poor relief teacher who finally could not take it and broke down and how the VP and my boss herself, despite going down to plead with the class but to no avail. Wow....I'm so glad I'm not the one who broke down and most likely I definitely will if I had continued to stay on. I mean I took these guys while they were in Sec 1 and they were already such devils, the first 2 months of this year only saddens me to know that they have not changed for the better and instead seemed to have gotten worse!

I would have loved teaching given other circumstances. The lousy treatment from the school and penultimate horrible students are the last straw. It saddens me to know that as a teacher there's only so much I can do/allowed to do. In a neighbourhood school there's so many problems to address and yet I can do little about them. The only saving grace of the job so far are the really wonderful colleagues and some of the really great students. Well I think teaching is just not the calling for me. But there are lots of people who continues this wonderful job and I believe they are really needed. But of course there are also slimes amongst who shove responsibility they have towards the job and still manage to survive well. Well, who asks the world to be made up of all sorts of characters.

Movie: World Trade Centre

Of course it's nothing new about movies like this, the title says it all. An event that took place 5 years ago, through the story of two patrol policemen who went in as a team but ended up the building collapsed on them, leaving two of them still alive but pinned under debris. That with love, humanity pulls through, love of one person for another. You can be total strangers but it doesn't matter because everyone is a brother or a sister, regardless of race, language, religion. Somehow very touched by humanity depicted here. Simple but touching. I'm always amazed at how strong humanity can be, especially those stories about how after a few days you can still find survivors even though hope of living is so minimal. Life is indeed miraculous. The movie leaves me wanting to go out there and save someone right after the movie.

At the end of the movie, when the names of those who died in the disaster appeared, people in the cinema start leaving. I think maybe it's just here. Maybe it really doesn't strike a chord in them. I feel that the only polite thing to do is to at least let the names scroll to the end, in respect for the people who perished just because they happened to be in the building or whether they went in to save others but end up losing their lives. We will never be able to feel what they felt but the least, show respect for these people.

Movie watching on my own

One of the rare times I go and catch a movie on my own. I did it at the spur of the moment, booked a ticket at 7pm for the 8.40pm show. A bit rushed but there's even time to go grab bread to bring in for dinner. A very satisfied evening. =)

Photo - Most hazy day so far

I took this photo on a bus to a wedding dinner at Rasa Sentosa on 7 October 2006. And this is by far the haziest day this year. The whole day started with thick haze that just refused to disperse and the PSI for that day reached as high as 140. It's a bad day to be out. If I had a choice I wouldn't be out at all.
I'm also impressed that my camera phone could take such a good photo. =)

Photo - Cute Panda

Panda in a cage. Looks like right? Actually it's a stuffed panda toy at the back of a car but it looked so real. I've never felt that any stuffed toy looked as real as this. It's sooo furry too!! I absolutely love it. If anyone saw the exact same toy for sale anywhere, please let me know. It's just so absolutely adorable.

DID I MARRY THE RIGHT PERSON?

On a timely basis, some sharing from an email I got:

pass it on if you think it's useful to someone else..

=========================================
Those who are still single may learn something from here....
Those who are already married may take it as a guideline to improve your
marriage....

DID I MARRY THE RIGHT PERSON?

During one of our seminars, a woman asked a common question.
She said, "How do I know if I married the right person?"
I noticed that there was a large man sitting next to her so I said, "It
depends. Is that your husband?"
In all seriousness, she answered "How do you know?"
Let me answer this question because the chances are good that it's
weighing on your mind.

===========================================

Here's the answer.
EVERY relationship has a cycle. In the beginning, you fell in love with
your spouse. You anticipated their call, wanted their touch, and liked
their idiosyncrasies.

Falling in love with your spouse wasn't hard. In fact, it was a
completely natural and spontaneous experience.
You didn't have to DO anything. That's why it's called "falling" in
love...
Because it's happening TO YOU.

People in love sometimes say, "I was swept off my feet." Think about the
imagery of that __expression. It implies that you were just standing
there; doing nothing, and then something came along and happened TO YOU.
Falling is love is easy. It's a passive and spontaneous experience.

But after a few years of marriage, the euphoria of love fades. It's the
natural cycle of EVERY relationship. Slowly but surely, phone calls
become a bother (if they come at all), touch is not always welcome (when
it happens), and your spouse's idiosyncrasies, instead of being cute,
drive you nuts.

The symptoms of this stage vary with every relationship, but if you
think about your marriage, you will notice a dramatic difference between
the initial stage when you were in love and a much duller or even angry
subsequent stage.

At this point, you and/or your spouse might start asking, "Did I marry
the right person?" And as you and your spouse reflect on the euphoria of
the love you once had, you may begin to desire that experience with
someone else. This is when marriages breakdown. People blame their
spouse for their unhappiness and look outside their marriage for
fulfillment.

Extramarital fulfillment comes in all shapes and sizes. Infidelity is
the most obvious. But sometimes people turn to work, a hobby, a
friendship, excessive TV, or abusive substances.

But the answer to this dilemma does NOT lie outside your marriage. It
lies within it.

I'm not saying that you couldn't fall in love with someone else. You
could.

And TEMPORARILY you'd feel better. But you'd be in the same situation a
few years later. Because (listen carefully to this):
THE KEY TO SUCCEEDING IN MARRIAGE IS NOT FINDING THE RIGHT PERSON; IT'S
LEARNING TO LOVE THE PERSON YOU FOUND.
SUSTAINING love is not a passive or spontaneous experience. It'll NEVER
just happen to you. You can't "find" LASTING love. You have to "make" it
day in and day out. That's why we have the __expression "the labor of
love."
Because it takes time, effort, and energy. And most importantly, it
takes WISDOM. You have to know WHAT TO DO to make your marriage work.
Make no mistake about it. Love is NOT a mystery. There are specific
things you can do (with or without your spouse) to succeed with your
marriage.

Just as there are physical laws of the universe (such as gravity), there
are also laws for relationships. Just as the right diet and exercise
program makes you physically stronger, certain habits in your
relationship WILL make your marriage stronger. It's a direct cause and
effect. If you know and apply the laws, the results are
predictable...you can "make" love.

Love in marriage is indeed a "decision"... Not just a feeling.

Please remember: LOVE THE PERSON YOU FOUND!!! Never take him/her for
granted

Snowflakes by the window

This is the picture of ice crystals on the window and we thought that the window had a crack! haha
But it melted once the aeroplane touched down at the airport.
Ok....Someone says it's a frost hahaha and he's tickling my toes now.
Ok fine, he wants me to address him as Boyfriend not Someone or Handyman..... =P